xiv, 498 pages : 25 cm

Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) is one of the most remarkable men in the history of Reformed Christianity. He was eminent in Dutch public life for half a century and left a deep imprint on Dutch immigrant communities in the United States, Canada, and South Africa. A theologian, politician, journalist, university founder, and seminal thinker in the history of modern Calvinism, Kuyper offered an engaging critique of the nineteenth century that still has much to say at the end of the twentieth. This anthology, published in the centennial year of Kuyper's famous Stone Lectures, gathers sixteen key writings by Kuyper never before available in English. Included in this volume are Kuyper's definitive statements on politics, education, culture, and the religious currents and social problems of his time. Also included are Kuyper's own conversion narrative, his critiques of Modernism and of Holiness theology, his proposals on common grace and Calvinist politics, his reflections on a culture in thrall to pantheism and evolution, and his classic address on "sphere sovereignty." Freshly translated and rendered in a clear, accessible style, these writings clearly display Kuyper's wide-ranging and creative Christian mind. Editor James Bratt provides helpful explanatory notes and an introduction to each piece. Photographs, cartoons, and short excerpts from some of Kuyper's better-known works also make this an attractive volume that will stand as the premier Kuyper reader for years to come. - Publisher

Includes bibliographical references (pages 491-498)

Introduction : Abraham Kuyper : his world and work -- Beginnings -- Uniformity : the curse of modern life (1869) : first piece of systematic cultural criticism -- Confidentially (1873) : narrative of Kuyper's conversion -- Church and theology -- Conservatism and orthodoxy : false and true preservation (1870) : farewell sermon at Utrecht -- Modernism : a Fata Morgana in the Christian domain (1871) : seminal critique of theological liberalism -- "It shall not be so among you" (1886) : sermon upon Kuyper's ouster from the Dutch National Reformed Church -- Perfectionism (1879) : critique of holiness theology -- Common grace (1902-4) : the hinge of Kuyper's constructive theology -- Politics and society -- Maranatha (1891) : keynote address at Antirevolutionary Party convention -- Manual labor (1889) : newspaper articles on the "social question" -- Our instinctive life (1908) : articles on human nature and party organization -- Calvinism : source and stronghold of our constitutional liberties (1874) : history and principles of Calvinist political conviction -- The South African crisis (1900) : critique of British imperialism

Culture and education -- The blurring of the boundaries (1892) : pantheism as the hallmark of nineteenth-century European culture -- Evolution (1899) : the deleterious philosophy and consequences of evolutionary naturalism -- Common grace in science (1904) : constructive statement on epistemology -- Sphere sovereignty (1880) : inaugural address at the Free University : the summa of Kuyper's thought

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